Bin Laden under our control, says Taliban

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have claimed Osama bin Laden is under their control and called on the United States to open negotiations to lift the threat of military action against their country.

The surprise move by the Taliban, which said previously it did not know where bin Laden was hiding, drew a dismissive response in Washington, with President George Bush refusing to consider negotiations.

In London, Tony Blair said he had seen ‘‘incontrovertible’’ evidence linking the Saudi-born millionaire to the September 11 attacks and that it was now vital that his al-Qaida terror network was ‘‘eradicated’’.

The Taliban’s claim that it had bin Laden under its control was made by its ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, at a news conference in Islamabad yesterday.

‘‘He’s in Afghanistan. He is under our control, Wherever he is, he’s in a secret place but that doesn’t mean that he is out of the control of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,’’ he told reporters.

‘‘He’s in a place which cannot be located by anyone.’’

Mr Zaeef said the Taliban would be prepared to open negotiations with the US on handing him over if America produced its evidence linking him to the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

He added: ‘‘If they attack without any evidence or unless this case goes through the proper court process, any attack will be a terrorist attack.

In Washington, the White House chief of staff Andrew Card dismissed the offer, saying: ‘‘The president has said we’re not negotiating.’’

Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld added: ‘‘It was just a few days ago that they said they didn’t know where he was, so I have no reason to believe anything a Taliban representative would say.’’

Although the Taliban would not disclose where bin Laden was hiding, sources with knowledge of the regime said there were indications that he was in the Bagram district of Helmand province, about 100 miles north west of the city of Kandahar.

The area is lined with mountains, easily defended and close enough to Kandahar, the seat of the Taliban authority, to enable the religious militias to keep in touch with bin Laden.

Pakistan has been trying to convince the hardline leadership that it risks its very survival by refusing to surrender bin Laden, a move the Taliban says would conflict with Afghan customs and its interpretation of Islamic tenets.

However, Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, said that he had little hope that the Taliban would comply with America’s demands.

‘‘The signals that come out are certainly not encouraging,’’ he told CNN.